Cavalier Eternal
by FrickFrackDotNerd
Summary: Bumblebee One-Shot based on the Against Me! song "Cavalier Eternal"


_Yang, I'm sorry, but I'm leaving_.

She read through the opening line of the letter for what felt like the hundredth time before gently putting the paper back down on the sticky bar. Two years. Two fucking years together and Blake had completely disappeared and left nothing but a god damn note. Yang knew she shouldn't be surprised; this was Blake Belladonna after all, the queen of running away.

With a heavy sigh she picked up the shot-glass on her right and slammed back the warm bourbon. She'd come home from grocery shopping that afternoon and found an empty apartment, and this note lying on the kitchen table. One page of Blake's meticulously lined script was all the goodbye she was getting from her girlfriend – well, ex-girlfriend now. After mindlessly reading the note, she did what she usually did when she needed to think: headed straight for her favorite watering hole, ordered a drink or five, and reassessed the situation. Yang picked said note back up and continued reading.

 _We're both at fault, we're both to blame. It wasn't the other men, because there were other women._

She barked out a laugh at that. So Blake _had_ known after all. She thought she'd been good about keeping it secret. Over the past six months they had grown so distant, between work, and Blake's long trip home to see her parents, they'd hardly had any time to be together. One night at this very bar when she'd had _maybe_ a little more than she should have, and had been feeling particularly neglected by her girlfriend, some tall drink of water named Wu had chatted her up, and after token resistance, she'd gone home with him. Long story short, she'd kept his number on speed-dial ever since.

So Blake had discovered her infidelity, and in retrospect Yang really should have recognized Blake's. The strange calls from unmarked numbers that Blake always jumped to answer, the nights where she slipped into bed after midnight with no explanation and no apology, and the lingering smell of perfume on the clothes of her girlfriend who usually smelled like lilac shampoo and gym-sweat… Yang really should have paid more attention.

What would she have done though? Confronted her, ranted and raved? That would have made her a hypocrite, she had her own liaisons. Confided in Weiss and Ruby and asked for advice? Asking the picture-perfect couple for advice on how to deal with her cheating girlfriend probably wasn't the best route.

Nothing, she probably would've done nothing. She didn't begrudge Blake her indiscretions, and it seemed like Blake had forgiven Yang for hers. Mentally, she hoped that whoever Blake was sleeping around with was at least hot. She hated to think that the raven-haired girl was so desperate she would accept a step-down from Yang who considered herself to be an eight or nine-out-of-ten at least.

The next line was what really stuck in her craw. The one that refused to make sense no matter how many times she rolled it around in her mind, and wouldn't stop bothering her no matter how much booze she tried to drown it out with.

 _This just isn't love, it's just the remorse of the loss of feeling._

 _Wasn't_ it love though? Yang certainly _thought_ she loved Blake, and she _thought_ Blake loved her, hell, she said it often enough. Despite this, Yang didn't feel… anything at her leaving. Rationally, she knew she should feel something, rage, despair, fear, or anything really. But instead she just felt like a weight had been lifted off her chest. She felt free.

Maybe Blake was right, maybe they weren't in love. But Yang knew they had been at one time. She remembered how her heart hammered in her chest the first time she asked her on a date, how she used to stay up for hours waiting for Blake to call her and say goodnight, the way her fingertips made Yang shiver in anticipation as they ran over her bare skin…. But she hadn't felt that way in weeks. Lately it had been less like living with her girlfriend and more like sharing a bed with a friendly roommate.

That was it then. She'd fallen out of love with Blake. It felt liberating to be able to say it to herself. _I'm not in love with her. I was but that's over now._

Even as she let out a mental sigh of relief, she started to dread the consequences. Blake had run away from her responsibilities, that was her MO, so Yang wasn't really surprised but she was still annoyed that she'd left her to pick up the pieces of their relationship. For years now all their friends had not thought of them as separate people, they were always "Yang and Blake." They got invited to go to parties together, they spent holidays together, they even had a damn cat together! And Yang didn't even like the cat, she'd only got the stupid beast to keep Blake happy!

Plus, now she had to tell their family and friends. Mentally, she ran down their likely reactions. Ruby would cry, probably for hours and look for an explanation that Yang really didn't have to give her. Her father would just frown and hug her, then ask her to move back home. Like hell she was doing that. Pyrrha and Jaune would splutter and apologize upwards of a million times, that would be annoying. Ren wouldn't say anything, but Nora would go on the war-path (that would at least be entertaining). And Weiss would offer to look for Blake, giving her the full access to the Schnee bank account to do so. But Yang wouldn't do that. She was tired of hunting Blake down. This time if the dark-haired girl wanted to stay gone, she could very well do that. Yang let out yet another deep sigh, _what a fuckin' hassle._

With two fingers she pushed her empty shot glass towards the back of the bar and called out "Double this drink up into the tallest glass you got." Junior, the mammoth bartender just raised an eyebrow before shrugging, knowing that Yang always paid her tab, and swapping out the smaller glass for a pint glass and filling it halfway with the bottom-shelf bourbon that Yang preferred. Blake used to call it "hangover juice" and would complain that it left Yang smelling like a distillery. _Well, she doesn't have to deal with that anymore_ Yang thought before taking a generous swig. She picked the letter back up, and when the words finally stopped swimming she continued reading

 _Someday I will call from a payphone at a truck stop on the road and you'll tell me how much better off you've been on your own._

So it really was over then. There was no cryptic message in this note, no "I'll see you again," Blake was gone for good. _And good riddance_ Yang thought derisively. Now that she thought about it, she was tired of dealing with Blake's mood swings, endless guilt, and inferiority complex. She was right, Yang would be just as happy alone as she ever had been with her girlfriend.

As she tilted the glass up to her lips, she spied a girl sidle up to the bar next to her. She was small but with the kind of curvy figure that usually caught Yang's attention. Most intriguing, the girl's shock of straight hair which went all the way down to the small her of her back was colored in brown, pink, and platinum blonde stripes. _Well, maybe not_ all _alone._

Plastering on her most charming smile, Yang fluffed up her blonde mane, undid one more button on her blouse (she found it never hurt to show a little extra skin in these situations), and slid a little closer to the smaller girl.

"Hi there, my name's Yang. It seems like you're here by yourself and it's my policy never to let a pretty girl drink alone." This caused the woman to titter behind her hand and batt her bright eyes in Yang's direction.

 _Goodbye Blakey_ Yang thought. _Wherever you are, I hope you're having a good night because mine's about to get a lot more interesting._


End file.
